by Alice Sharpe
The electricity went out as he put the last plate on the open shelf.
He stacked more wood on the fire and lit another lantern, which he used to go check on Lily who was sound asleep. He replaced her kicked-off covers. As he walked back down the dark hallway, he noticed a light on under the door of Helen’s room.
He raised his hand to knock to make sure she was okay, to try to cajole her back into the kitchen so she could get herself something to eat. Before his knuckles touched the wood, the door swung open.
Helen faced him, carrying a small backpack in her hand. She’d changed into her snow clothes—thermal, watertight overalls and a blue jacket with a hood. A pair of heavily insulated gloves dangled around her neck on a tether. Her feet were clad in thick socks, awaiting boots, he supposed.
He said, “Helen?”
“I’m going to my sister’s house,” she said.
He stared at her a second. She’d been part of his household for years and to say her current behavior was out of character was like saying if an elephant took a hankering to sit down, he’d need more than one chair.
Nick shook his head.
“I can’t stay here. I can’t bear to hear talk about him. Why did she come here? She’s going to make things worse—”
She stopped abruptly and met his gaze, her large dark eyes swimming in pain. He knew exactly what she was thinking, because he’d been thinking it himself. By coming to this house, Katie Fields had unintentionally brought the past alive. He said, “Is your sister expecting you?”
“None of the phones work.”
“Damn, we lost the phone line already? I’m going to have to break down and get a cell phone one of these days.”
“It doesn’t mater. My sister will be home. I’m sorry, Mr. Nick, to abandon you—”
“I’ll drive you—”
“The snow’s too deep. Even if you got me there, you’d never get back. I’ll take one of the snowmobiles.”
“Helen—”
“It’s not far. And you have Lily to watch.”
She sidled past him and he made no move to stop her, but he didn’t like her going off into a storm by herself. On the other hand, he couldn’t take Lily out into this weather. Well, well, his visitor might come in handy after all. “Wait,” he called, approaching Helen. He spoke fast and low. She shook her head, but he ignored her and went looking for Katie.
This time he found her in the living room, seated in a big red chair pulled up close to the fire, and for a second, his breath caught.
Firelight danced across her face, sparkled in her eyes, glistened in her hair. She sat forward, warming her hands, her trim body taut. She looked so bright and so alive she rivaled the fire itself.
He rubbed his eyes before entering the room and stood with his back to the fire, staring down at her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine.” Reluctantly, he added, “I need a favor.”
She immediately nodded. “Of course.”
“Helen is taking a snowmobile into Frostbite to visit her sister. I’m not comfortable with her going out in this alone. Will you keep an eye on Lily while I give Helen a ride? It shouldn’t take more than twenty or thirty minutes and Lily is sound asleep. I doubt she’ll stir.”
“Helen is leaving because of me, isn’t she?”
“It’s her choice. I won’t be long.”
Katie said, “I spent half my youth babysitting. I’d love to watch Lily.”
Helen was sitting on the bench out on the porch, lacing up her boots. He put on his snow gear. In unison, they moved to the garage, where they both pulled on helmets. Nick pushed the larger of the snowmobiles out the door. As he and Helen roared away from the house, he looked back once, reassured by the flickering of the lanterns visible through the falling snow, his home a comfortable island floating on mounds of pristine white.
KATIE WATCHED the retreating lights of the snowmobile disappear, with her hands clenched into fists at her side.
It all came down to time.
Time for stories read to a child, time for Helen to get sulky and distant, to require aid, to retreat.
Time to eat and wash dishes, time to build fires and light lanterns, time for everything and everyone except her mother, the one person to whom every second might mean the difference between life and death.
What was going on? Why was it so hard to get an answer to anything in this house?
She turned away from the window in a huff, frustration demanding movement, movement all but impossible unless it was contained within the log structure. She stomped down the hall until she found an open door with a soft light coming from within. An oversize window covered with lacy curtains took up half of one wall. The bed was positioned in such a way that a person could look outside while lying down. The view must be gorgeous when it was actually possible to see outside.
Nick had left a lantern burning on his daughter’s dresser; its flickering light cast dancing shadows against the walls, but it also bathed a sleeping child’s face. Katie covered her mouth with her hand and stared.
Lily Pierce was an angel on earth. Fine blond hair, long dark lashes, rosebud mouth, rounded cheeks…the whole nine yards. She was the treasure inside the castle, the princess inside the steeple, and all of a sudden, Nick’s fierce determination to see to her needs at any cost made a little more sense.
Katie backed quietly out into the hall, returning to the living room, sitting back down in the red chair, holding her hands toward the fire not so much because she was cold as because the sounds of the storm made her feel cold.
And alone.
Wind rustled in the trees, whistled in the eaves, banged things together, blew snow against the windows. The interior of the house was warm and wel coming in the way a port in a storm always is, but despite the reassuringly thick walls and the beautiful slumbering child a few steps away, the underlying tensions between Nick and herself, to say nothing of Helen’s abrupt departure, eroded the comfort level, letting the cold seep between the logs of polite construction.
Katie settled back in the chair, closing her eyes. Her headache had disappeared with the ingestion of Helen’s excellent meal, but her leg still throbbed and she knew fatigue fueled her distress. For once she was glad Tess couldn’t pick up any telepathic vibes, because the maelstrom inside Katie’s head wouldn’t do anyone any good, especially not Tess. Tess needed to put her energy into healing, not worrying.
Katie should have gotten back on that blasted plane. She’d been here for three hours and nothing had happened except she’d eaten dinner and made an enemy. Why was Helen so determined not to give her a chance?
She opened her eyes and surveyed the surrounding room. The rock fireplace took up most of one wall. A wooden door about two feet square led to a supply of firewood—she’d checked. The wide hearth was two feet off the ground with a few cushions tossed atop, making extra seating. One photo sat on the mantel, framed in heavy wood. A blond woman holding a baby. Nick’s late wife, no doubt, Lily as an infant. The other walls, logs chinked with what appeared to be cement, were covered with watercolors, beautiful paintings of hillsides and wildflowers, snowy peaks and exotic animals. The furniture was big and comfortable, table-tops cluttered with toys and books and camera equipment. Because of the log construction, the windows were deep and dark—
A face suddenly appeared in one of the front windows. Gasping, Katie shot to her feet. A man’s face but not Nick’s. Fuller, unshaved, dark eyes furtive.
And then it was gone—poof!—as though it had never been there.
Katie stood stock-still for several moments, her mind racing. Was the door locked? Were all the doors locked? She moved quickly to the front door and found a chain in place. She started to undo it, to open the door, to peer outside and call out, but her hand stilled at the last moment and she dropped it, leaning back against the door, listening, waiting.
Nothing. No knock. The silence was ominous.
She went thro
ugh the kitchen to the back door. It, too, was locked. She didn’t know if there were other doors. Spying the phone on the wall, she plucked off the receiver, ready to call 911 and probably make a fool of herself. The line was dead. She dug her cell phone from her pocket. The screen lit at her touch. Still no signal.
She was alone. Well, except for the slumbering child down the hall.
Katie retraced her steps to the living room and the fireplace, sitting back on her red chair, staring toward the window, a black portal buffeted now and again by nothing more sinister than a snow flurry.
“Who are you?” a high-pitched voice said from her elbow.
For the second time that night, Katie gasped as her heart did a little stop-and-start thing in her chest. Lily Pierce stood nearby in pink footy pajamas, tousled fair hair a halo around her head, round cheeks blooming with pink. She held a gray stuffed bunny by one ear.
Hoping the child wouldn’t burst into tears or run from the room, Katie said, “My name is Katie.”
“Where’s Helen? Where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy took Helen to visit her sister—”
“Went to Auntie Joy’s house?”
Sounded reasonable to Katie. She said, “I think so. Daddy will be back very soon. Did something wake you, sweetheart? Did you, uh, see someone?”
The child shook her head. She shuffled a little and Katie started to get up to follow her back to her room and tuck her into bed, but Lily came to stop right in front of Katie.
“You know ’bout the birdie in the palm tree?” she asked.
Katie said, “I don’t think so.”
“I tell you?”
Happy for the company, Katie patted her knee. “Okay.”
The little girl climbed onto Katie’s lap, squirming around until she fit comfortably, her head right under Katie’s nose, her fine hair fluttering when Katie exhaled a breath. She presented a warm, sweet-smelling bundle, totally at ease, one dimpled hand clutching the bunny, the other hand laying idle on Katie’s arm except for a single finger she used to stroke Katie’s watchband.
The wind howled outside and rattled the door. A shiver ran up Katie’s spine and she wrapped her arms around Lily. She wasn’t sure what else to do. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if she’d imagined the man at the window.
“’Bout that birdie—” Lily whispered, launching into a story that Katie tried her best to understand. She could only catch every third word, however, so she nodded a lot and murmured appropriate remarks. She kept her eyes focused on the window, jerking every time a gust of wind made something outside bang or clatter. Her other senses were attuned to Lily. Her clean little-girl smell, her warm weight in Katie’s arms, her soft voice.
Katie liked children—always had, though she’d been raised an only child with no younger cousins to play with. There had been the neighbor kids, though, younger than she, a veritable gold mine of babysitting money. This child took the cake, however. She was not only physically attractive, but she was charming and trusting and her eyes twinkled.
Katie hugged Lily tighter and, instead of resisting, the child relaxed. Her body grew heavier, the string of the story faded into words interspersed with yawns until there were no more words, just soft breathing and a heavy head on Katie’s shoulder.
Katie knew she should carry the child off to her bed, but the temptation to hold her in front of the crackling fire was too great to resist. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone. Where was Nick?
What she wanted was for him to come home and reassure her with something along the lines of: “That face in the window? Not to worry, that’s old man Petrie, a harmless recluse. The old coot likes to wander around in snowstorms looking for aluminum cans.” That would be great. She could handle old man Petrie…
Resting her cheek atop Lily’s spun-gold hair and kissing her forehead, Katie closed her eyes, listening to the storm outside. Both the anxiety concerning the face at the window and worry about her mother’s welfare took a back seat as exhaustion caught up with her, spinning her thoughts into ever-more-distant circles.
She must have fallen asleep, for the next thing Katie knew, a door slammed her back to consciousness. Nick Pierce stood just inside the room, the expression on his face unfathomable.
“What are you doing with my daughter?” he said, striding across the room.
A sudden stab of guilt made Katie flinch. She should have put the little girl back in her bed, but honestly, was it really such a big deal?
Katie said, “I—”
He leaned over and picked Lily up, shifting her in his arms, his embrace of his sleeping child as tender as it was protective.
“What’s your problem?” she snapped, her voice a sharp whisper. “Your child needed comforting and so I—”
“Lily is—”
“Your daughter. I got that. This place is a nuthouse! How she turned out so endearing—”
“No one asked you to come here,” he said, his expression so intense it would probably start a blaze if directed on one spot long enough.
“You’re right,” she said, standing. “And trust me, as soon as I can figure out a way to leave, I’ll be out of your hair. You don’t know anything about your father, do you? I bet you don’t know anything about anyone, especially not yourself!”
“What the hell does that mean?” He kept his voice as low in volume as Katie did.
She glowered at him in response.
“I’m going to put Lily back in her bed. You stay here.”
As though she had anywhere else to go!
Chapter Four
Nick tucked Lily into her bed, kissed her cheek and closed the door, leaving it open just a crack in case she called out. Then he stood in the hall and ran his hand through his hair.
That blasted woman! Coming into his house, scaring away his housekeeper, waking his kid, acting as though she owned the place, as though she had rights, as though she was an invited guest and not an interloper and a troublemaker and a major pain in the neck.
He had to get rid of her.
Oh, hell, he knew in the back of his mind that Lily sometimes woke up during storms and wandered out to see if anything interesting was going on without her. He should be grateful that Katie was there to comfort his baby, that Lily had felt comfortable enough to go to her, to sit on her lap, to fall asleep in her arms, but he wasn’t grateful. He didn’t know for sure what he felt, but it wasn’t gratitude.
Taking a deep breath, he went back to the living room. Katie was still in the red chair. She looked up when he entered. “Your phone is dead,” she said.
“I know. I should have told you it went down early in the storm. Listen, what do you want to know?” he asked, claiming a matching chair to the left of hers. It was time to get this over with.
“There’s nothing you can tell me,” she said without looking at him. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and snippets of things she’d said about herself over the past few hours suddenly came back to him. She hadn’t known her mother until recently? Her sister was in the hospital with a gunshot wound? And her limp. Why did she limp?
“Listen, let’s start over again,” he said.
She darted him a quick glance. “What’s the point? You resent my being here. You’re right, I foisted myself on you and your family. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve made everything worse instead of better and now I’m stuck.”
He chuckled. “You’re pretty good,” he said.
This earned him a longer look. “What do you mean?”
“Anger hasn’t worked. Buttering me up with a poignant little vignette featuring my kid didn’t do it. Now you’re going to try humility.”
He expected her to jump to her feet and strike out at him. Face it, it was the reaction he hoped for. Caring feelings toward this woman were impossible to entertain. She was trouble. Or to be more fair, she would bring trouble to his life and his family if given half a chance, so reason said push her far away using any method available.
H
e couldn’t throw her out of the house, because she’d freeze to death. With the county roads in their current snowed-in condition and with no one to watch Lily, he couldn’t even drive her back into Frostbite’s lone hotel though, now that he thought of it, why hadn’t he deposited her there instead of bringing her out here? He couldn’t call her a cab or send her off on a snowmobile. Physically, he was stuck with Katie Fields, so the only method to get rid of her was to anger her beyond reason so she’d stalk off to the guest room and leave him in peace.
But she didn’t jump up or turn nasty. “You really hate your father, don’t you?”
He stared right into her blue eyes and smiled. “I really do.”
She sighed. “First things first. Did you stand outside and look through that window over there a few minutes ago? Fifteen maybe, a half hour tops?”
“Absolutely not,” he said quickly.
“I didn’t think so.”
“You saw someone?”
“Yes. He looked right through the window but by the time I blinked he was gone. Then Lily showed up so I kept her in here with me. I’d like to say it was for her sake, but truthfully, I just didn’t want to be alone and she was so damn sweet and trusting—”
He held up a conciliatory hand. “I’ve fallen under her spell a time or two myself. Let’s get back to the man at the window. What did he look like?”
“He had dark eyes and a haggard, unshaven look. That’s all I could see. I think he was wearing a hood of some kind. He looked—intense, I guess. I went over to the door to check the chain and listen, but I couldn’t hear anything.”
Nick had walked to the door as Katie spoke. She was right behind him. Taking a lantern from the table, he unhooked the chain and pulled open the door, letting in a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes. He shone the light out into the dark, cold night.
It was still snowing. Four or five new inches had accumulated on the porch railing. The grounds were blanketed in white, broken by the tall shapes of waving trees and long lines of fences all obscured by the storm. The eight guest cabins hovered off to the left, dark and silent and empty.
